Mesa Verde Administrative History

By Act of Congress approved on June 29, 1906, certain tracts of land in Montezuma County, southwestern Colorado, were set apart as a public reservation known as Mesa Verde National Park. This land, many years past inhabited by Pueblo Indians, embraced the most extensive concentration of prehistoric cliff dwellings in the United States. The park was placed under the exclusive control of the Secretary of the Interior who was authorized to prescribe such rules and regulations and establish the necessary service for the care and management of the same. Specifically provided by the rules and regulations would be the preservation of the ruins and other works and relics of prehistoric or primitive man within the park boundaries. Similarly protected by the Act were all prehistoric ruins situated within five miles of the boundaries of the park, on Indian and public lands not alienated by patent from the ownership of the United States. As in the Antiquities Act of 1906, the Secretary was authorized to permit examinations, excavations, and gathering of objects by persons duly qualified, but only for the benefit of reputable museums, universities, colleges, or other recognized scientific or educational institutions. [1]

Mesa Verde National Park, adjacent to the southern Ute Indian Reservation, is a high plateau dividing the Mancos and Montezuma Valleys—among the fairest and richest of Colorado farm lands. This mesa or plateau is elevated above the valleys some 2,000 feet, and rises abruptly from their floors with precipitous cliffs similar to the walls of canyons. Point Lookout, the highest point of the terrace-like mesa, rises 8,600 feet on the north like the bulwark of a mighty ship.

Mancos River, the main stream of water in the area, cuts through the park from northeast to southwest and forms a canyon of from 1,000 to 2,000 feet deep. Mesa Verde proper, about 15 miles long and 8 miles wide, lies on both sides of this gorge, but largely on the northwestern part. Cut into finger-like shreds, the mesa is a labyrinth of narrow lateral canyons of great beauty that present successions of huge promontories, sculptured ledges, and bold, jagged cliffs. The surface of the mesa slopes gently southward and is drained by the Mancos River and its tributaries. Running in northerly and southerly directions, the deep canyons begin with small depressions at the north end of the mesa and become deeper as they approach the Canyon of the Mancos. In the high and almost inaccessible canyon cliffs a forgotten race erected the magnificent structures that the park was established to protect.

Mesa Verde receives considerably more rainfall than true desert areas, and vegetation typical of the upper Sonoran or transition zone is moderately luxuriant. This heavy cover of vegetation, mainly piñon and juniper trees, accounts for the mesa's name, which means "Green Tableland."

Although the prehistoric remains are the most important resources of the park, the flora and fauna of Mesa Verde at the time of the cliff dwellers were just as much a part of their civilization as the artifacts and buildings, and so were the spectacular canyons.

A slow but powerful erosive process was responsible for the unique geographic features of canyons and mesas. Underlying the Montezuma Valley is a mass of soft clay or drab shale known by geologists as the Mancos shale, named for the town of Mancos, beneath which it is typically developed. Overlying this shale are several hundred feet of porous sandstone, coal bearing in the lower part and called the Mesa Verde sandstone. These relatively hard rocks formed at one time a continuous table, the plateau of which the present Mesa Verde is a remnant. As this table sloped gently southward, the streams gathered upon its surface drained in that direction until they joined Mancos River along the southern edge of the original plateau. Eventually, the streams etched through the massive sandstone capping and reached the soft shale which lay beneath. While the shale offered but little resistance to the erosive process, the canyons deepened with great rapidity until the conditions at present existing in the park were reached. The numerous canyons are rimmed by the edges of the more resistant overlying rocks, which form the encircling cliffs with sheer faces. Thus the ideal physical conditions were formed for the cliff dwellers to build their homes in the overhanging cliffs of the forbidding canyons. [2]

When the park was established the major mesas, canyons, and ruins were known already by particular names. There are hundreds of ruins in all the canyons of the park but the largest and most remarkable are located in Navajo, Cliff, Soda, Long, and Rock Canyons. These main ruins are largely distributed around two large mesas—Chapin, the largest, on the southeastern part of the park, and Wetherill on the southwest. Because of the geographical features of mesas and canyons, Wetherill Mesa has been more isolated, undeveloped, and less accessible than the popular Chapin. Of the largest and best known cliff dwellings, three are located in Chapin Mesa:, Cliff Palace, Spruce Tree House and Balcony House. Less known but almost equally spectacular are Long House, Step House, and Mug House in Wetherill Mesa. Cliff Palace is the largest in the park while Long House is the second largest. Literally thousands of dwellings once stood on the mesas, without the protection of overhanging cliffs, and today are mounds of stone and earth.

Who were the cliff dwellers? Who they were, when and where they came from, and why they suddenly vanished are puzzling questions which still remain much behind a veil of mystery. It is known, however, that the cliff dwellings and mesa-top ruins unfold one of the most significant chapters in the story of prehistoric America.

For about 1,200 years the Mesa Verde region was occupied by agricultural Indians who began to drift into the area shortly after the beginning of the Christian Era. At first their culture was simple, but there was constant progress and by 1200 A. D. they had achieved a high cultural level. Then suddenly, by or shortly before 1300 A. D., the Indians abandoned their homes and drifted southward and eastward in search of more favorable locations.

After the abandonment by the Indians, the dwellings stood unmolested by man for many hundreds of years. It is of no consequence now to ponder about who was the first white man who saw the abandoned homes and when. What is relevant is what happened after they were "discovered."

It is generally accepted that the cliff dwellings were discovered by the Wetherill brothers, a family of five cowboys with a ranch in the Mancos Valley, around 1888. For some years they systematically explored the Mesa Verde canyons, excavated the major ruins, named most of them, and brought out an immense quantity of artifacts most of which today are found in private collections. Their reports about the fantastic ruins excited the interest of both scientists. and pot hunters.

Although the general looting of archeological ruins began when people started moving into the Southwest, the heyday for Mesa Verde was after 1888. One ruin after another was subjected to wholesale commercial looting by pot hunters to meet increasing market demands for artifacts and comprehensive collections. This caused prodigious damage, destruction and loss of archeological sites and values. Fortunately, some of the cliff dwellings were perched in canyons so seldom visited that they were not found until some protection could be given. They were often almost impossible to reach except by ladder or toe and handholds cut into rock formations, some of them built in cliffs of scenic magnificence. Usually on flat land, the pueblos were easily reached, and they suffered more from vandals and of course from the elements. Only through the scientific excavations of the heaps of rubble and dirt, could the scientist delineate the outlines of the original structures.

There was some interest in the protection and preservation of the Mesa Verde ruins as early as 1891 but no definite or concrete action was taken. In 1897, however, the attention of the Colorado Federation of Women's Clubs was directed to the problem and a committee was named to spearhead the fight for the protection of the cliff dwellings. In 1900 the committee was organized into the Colorado Cliff Dwellings Association, an incorporated organization dedicated to the struggle for the preservation of the ruins. Mrs. Gilbert McClurg and Mrs. Lucy Peabody were the foremost leaders of the Association. It is unique in the history of the National Park System that Mesa Verde National Park was created through the efforts of this private group of women. [3]